This coming Wednesday might be a very eventful day! NASA is holding a "Major" news conference at 1pm. Keynote speakers working with the TRAPPIST telescope in Belgium (which detected Makemake has no atmosphere) and Sara Seager (Planetary Scientist specializing in exoplanet atmospheres) will be there. Her theoretical work on detecting bio-chemical signatures has won many awards. She coined the term Gas Dwarf, rocky Super-Earths with primarily Hydrogen/Helium atmospheres.

She also has her own equation similar to the Drake Equation that is based on gases produced by life as we know it rather than Radio Signals: N = N*FQFHZFoFLFS

where: N = the number of planets with detectable signs of lifeN* = the number of stars observedFQ = the fraction of stars that are quietFHZ = the fraction of stars with rocky planets in the habitable zoneFo = the fraction of those planets that can be observedFL = the fraction that have lifeFS = the fraction on which life produces a detectable signature gas

Maybe even Gliese 411-b, recently discovered and noted in the "100+planets" release, is the 4th nearest system to our own & could be the culprit, but that is very, very wishful thinking on my part!

Keep in mind the last time NASA held a "Major News Conference" they just had greater proof that Europa had a greater sub-surface ocean. My guess is they found another exoplanet with a Nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere.

"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." - Douglas Adams

Do not get your hopes up before the actual conference. Wait to see what they found, and then check the papers themselves and the critical review of their results.

Lots of "big announcements" end up being somewhat mundane or not what you expect, or are sensational but end up not withstanding further review. Not saying that's going to happen here, but again, wait to see.

I have now learned that tomorrow's NASA news announcement is not about bio-chemical signatures in the atmosphere as I had hoped (darn lol) but it is is something cool - or "warm" to be precise. A nearby star has at least 7 earth-sized planets and they may be just the right temperature for liquid water to exist - if they have any water, that is.

The individuals attending this press event at NASA have been looking for planets circling other stars. Last year one of them, Michael Gillon was lead author on a paper "Temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star" in Nature detailing how his team has confirmed 3 Earth-sized terrestrial planets circulating a cool dwarf star 2MASS J23062928-0502285 (now known as TRAPPIST-1), an M8V class star which is only 39.5 light years away.

Now, it will be announced tomorrow that 4 more Earth-sized planets have been confirmed circling TRAPPIST-1. It is possible that most of the planets confirmed thus far circling TRAPPIST-1 could be in the star's habitable zone. Astronomers are clearly excited about these new planets.

I'm very skeptical about habitability claims for M Dwarfs (the XUV habitability zone tends to be pretty far from the star when the planets are forming - any planets far enough to avoid being XUV-cooked are too cold for liquid water.

Source of the post I'm very skeptical about habitability claims for M Dwarfs (the XUV habitability zone tends to be pretty far from the star when the planets are forming - any planets far enough to avoid being XUV-cooked are too cold for liquid water.

What if they got XUV-cooked, and got water after that from comets forming far out enough to not get cooked? I believe that was at least a major part how Earth got its water, and comets with organic molecules could create life on planets they hit, like in the video game Spore, which is maybe how Earth itself got life.But still, planets in the habitable zone around MV stars would probably be tidally locked, or be in a spin-orbital resonance, which would make solar days very very long (like 100 days), which would have some of the same effects as being tidally locked, and considering it is a very small red dwarf, tidal locking or spin-orbital resonance would be almost guaranteed.

cant wait for james web telescope to start study the planets atmosphere! one thing we cant forget about is that it's red dwarf system, the planets are probably locked so only the middle zone between the night time and the day time could host life or water (like in SE locked planets)the planets orbit the star so close to each other its like jupiter's moons system:

and that how the sky would look like, you would see the other planets and the star big in the sky:and new poster from nasa:

"man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore"-Andre Gide

Source of the post the planets orbit the star so close to each other its like jupiter's moons system:

Probably not, orbital period depends not only on semi-major axis but also on the mass of the parent. Since TRAPPIST-1 is at least 80 or so times the mass of Jupiter, a planet around this star with the same orbital period as let's say Ganymede would be much farther out from TRAPPIST-1 than Ganymede is from Jupiter.